Jerry Springer: former politician who presided over a tawdry TV circus

Jerry Springer was a former lawyer and politician who became one of the most controversial figures on US television, said The Sydney Morning Herald.

His daytime talk show, The Jerry Springer Show, was launched in 1991, and ran until 2018. When it started, it covered topical news; then, with its ratings falling, it transformed itself into a modern “freak show”, in which “ordinary people” – mostly the poor and socially marginalised, and including a steady stream of white supremacists – were encouraged to air their secrets and scandals in front of a baying studio audience. Springer, sensibly dressed in dark suits, acted as ringmaster.

‘No subject too indecent’

With the production motto “No subject too indecent, no individual too pathetic”, the show was divided into segments with titles such as “You Slept With My Stripper Sister!”, and “I Married a Horse”. They frequently ended in screaming matches and fistfights – egged on by the audience chanting “Jer-ry! Jer-ry!” After one episode, a guest was beaten to death by the ex-husband she’d just confronted.

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Springer’s show wasn’t the first spectacle of its type, said The Guardian. But attracting millions of viewers, and syndicated to 40 countries, it was arguably the most influential. It paved the way for a host of imitators, and the rise of so-called reality TV, “in which contestants chosen for their exhibitionism tried to outdo each other in humiliations and conflicts created and scripted by the producers”.

‘Take care of yourself, and each other’

Jerry Springer was born in 1944, in London’s Highgate Tube station (then an air raid shelter), the son of Jewish parents who had fled Germany. When he was five, they moved to Queens, New York. He studied law at Northwestern University, and after a period in private practice in Cincinnati, he moved into local politics. Despite a scandal involving a prostitute, he became Democrat mayor of Cincinnati in 1977.

He switched to political reporting in 1982, and within a decade he was presiding over his own show, for which he earned millions each year. He ended each one with a homily, and the same sign-off: “Take care of yourself, and each other.” Springer defended his show, arguing that viewers had the right to see the “whole panorama” of human behaviour; but he claimed not to like it. Invited to speak at his former university, in 2008, he said: “To the students who invited me – thank you. I am honoured. To the students who object to my presence – well, you’ve got a point. I, too, would’ve chosen someone else.”